In this blog we discuss Old Testament, women in the church and home, afterlife experiences, and the paranormal. Author, Dust or Dew. Also, see my story on www.coloradowreckchasing.com where I describe the mysterious crash of a UAL crash in 1951 on Crystal Mt. CO.

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Saturday, December 15, 2012

These particular stories are ones that I have experienced
myself or have heard from the people who experienced them. Of course one could
say that any book written as a testimony of miracles, haunting, or alien
abductions is a first hand account, but in this particular post I will deal
only with unpublished anecdotes rather than books.

A Lutheran pastor
confronts demons in a multiple personality client

This story was heard recently in an adult Sunday School
class in our Lutheran church. Pastor Harry, who is retired now, found himself
in an uncomfortable situation when some of the personalities in a woman with
multiple personalities seemed to be demonic. He knew nothing of exorcism and
little of Psychology so he tried to pass the woman onto the psychologist. That
man, however, demurred, since the demons were more open with the minister.
“What do I do with them?” asked the minister. “Talk to them,” said the
psychologist. So he did his best, setting up a sort of code to tell who was
who. He would ask them if Jesus Christ was Lord. He figured the demons couldn’t
say that. He learned in the course of time that they actually could. After all,
the Bible says that the demons believe and tremble. When Christ was on earth,
they recognized him right away and pleaded for mercy. So Pastor Harry set up
another code. “Can you say that Jesus is my
Lord?” That the demons could not do. Harry claims that he did get rid of
the personalities that could not make that claim, and the woman herself became
a helper to him in dealing with other clients with mental problems.

Korean War troops
saved from a cold, wet death

I heard this story in Lexington, Kentucky. It was the season
of the horse races. Horsemen came into town from all over, living out of their
trailers and mobile homes. Sitting in Jerry’s restaurant I heard one of them
telling his tablemates that he was a soldier in the Korean War. When the men
got bored, they had to find creative ways to entertain themselves. One favorite
was to get a little drunk, climb into a jeep, and fly down a long, straight
road as fast as they could go. One night several of them were doing just that.
Suddenly they saw a swinging lantern directly in front of them. The road was
pitch black and there was no time to stop or swerve. The jeep blew right through
the swinging lantern. The men all screamed, certain that they had just killed
someone. The jeep screeched to a stop. All the soldiers got out and looked for
the person with the lantern. But there was no one to be seen. And it dawned on
them that they had not felt a thud. They went forward on the road a bit where there
was a bridge. Guess what they found there? The bridge was out. The jeep was
feet away from plunging into the river in the black of night, miles away from
human aid.

My one awful
experience of discerning a demonic spirit

In the 1970’s I attended a Pentecostal church that
ministered to young people, some of whom came from troubled backgrounds. I
wound up spending the night at the apartment of one of these women. It wasn’t a
particularly comfortable relationship for me, but I wanted to encourage her, so
I was willing to be friendly and spend time with her. She went to bed earlier
than I, so I spent some time in the living room in prayer. Suddenly I seemed to
sense a spirit of suicide standing nearby, an actual specific presence with a
purpose for being in the apartment. I had never had such an experience, so I
thought/hoped it was my imagination. Just in case, I prayed against it. After a
bit, I heard rustling about the apartment. The bathroom door was ajar. I got up
to see what was going on. There was Linda, lying on the bathroom floor with a
kitchen knife aimed at her stomach. I was horrified, but tried to not let it
show. This was a woman who had been in 72 hour lock down more than once. I knew
nothing about such things or about people who are that depressed. She kept
mumbling that no one would care. I assured her that plenty of people would care
if she took her life. I said, “Let’s call your mom right now and tell her your
plan and we’ll see if she cares.” I got Linda back in bed, heaved a sigh of
relief, and went back to prayers. More time passed, and I heard that rustling
again. This time Linda had some rat spray and a plastic bag. I don’t recall
how, but I talked that down and got her back to bed. I prayed all night until
dawn, then left. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. One lady asked me
later, “Why didn’t you call for professional help?” She didn’t call me a boob,
but it sounded like she thought I was one. I guess the answer to that is that I
actually was kind of a boob, and had
no idea what to do in such cases. I certainly at least should have called
someone from the church, but I thought maybe she was just being a drama queen.

But it is amazing how the enemy of our souls can put ideas
in our heads as if those thoughts are our own. The more we give in to such
thoughts, the more power they have over us. At some point, the ability to
resist is lost. That is why Jesus Christ warned us, “Resist the devil and he
will flee from you.” Resisting evil or destructive thoughts is our first line
of defense. And if that doesn’t work, call on God for help. Next defense, turn
to people who can help you, people who are not in the same pit as you are.

Claudia King’s
encounter with the spiritual mafia

This story is just a segment from one of my previous blog
posts. To see the whole post, put her name in the search box at the top of the
blog.

Claudia’s father was in the mafia smuggling liquor. She wasn’t
abused as a child, but she was sent away to a Catholic school for her own
safety. Mention of religion was not allowed in her home. She was curious as a
teenager to know if God was real. She decided that a quick way to find out was
to call up Satan. If the devil was real, then maybe God was, too. She writes:

There was one book, in
particular, to which I was drawn. It described a chant, with a diagram, and two
candles -- simple enough. I repeated the words from that book in my room that
night and did everything it instructed me to do. I rejected Jesus verbally and
called upon spirits I knew nothing about for power. After a short time, it all
seemed silly, so I went to bed.

After being asleep for
a while, I woke up to an intense growling under my bed -- near my head. I sat
up and listened, becoming more frightened. After a few minutes it went away. I
laid back down on my side and fell asleep. I remember waking up to adjust my
pillow. I could not find it. I opened my eyes to find I had levitated almost to
the ceiling and my pillow was on my bed beneath me. I remember one of the books
saying that you could ‘will’ things to happen to you – so I ‘willed’ myself to
go down to my bed. At this point I turned my bedroom light on and kept it on
for a long time.

I went to the kitchen
and got a glass of juice. I returned to my room, not believing my own
experience and went back to bed. Maybe the growling and the levitating was just
some freaky dream! I convinced myself that it was just that I was tired -- and
I settled into a comfortable position on my stomach when two very large demonic
hands grabbed my ankles and proceeded to pull me off my bed. They didn’t feel
like human hands -- but I have no way to describe how I knew that. I grabbed
the top of my mattress and the force was so strong that the mattress bent in the
direction I was being pulled. I don’t know why I said it, but I whispered,
‘Jesus’ and immediately the hands let go and like a vacuum, the evil presence
was sucked from the room. I could hear it leave.

It took Claudia 17 years to divest herself of that evil
presence, and that was only after a 6 hour exorcism in some Pentecostal lady’s
kitchen. She is walking free and clear today, but can you imagine spending
eternity with those growling creatures? We live in a spiritual war zone. The
message of the Bible is that dying is no way to escape the stress and
uncertainty of this world because there is plenty dark, creepy, terrifying
stuff waiting for us on the other side if we do not avail ourselves of God’s
protection and salvation. It will devour your grandma, ruin your health, and/or
claim your kids if you don’t find a way to combat it.

That’s my word count for today. In my next post, I will
discuss exorcism in more detail.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Sometimes the evangelical doctrine
of “inerrancy” (there are no errors in the Bible and all ideas presented
reflect the thinking of God) snares the church in some sticky wickets. For
example, the Christian church, the Body of Christ, the light on a hilltop, the
salt of the earth, the purveyor of the love of God, finds that to be true to
inerrant Scripture it must suppress women. Why? Because Adam was born first and
Eve sinned first. That puts women beneath men forever, until the Second Coming.
They must also bash gay people as sinners worse than any on earth . . . worse
than the philandering minister, the heterosexual predator teaching Sunday
School, and the lukewarm Church of Laodicea. It is not the lackadaisical believers
that will bring a curse on the U.S., it is the gays getting married.

For many years Christians felt they had to burn blaspheming
heretics at the stake. They all did it, Catholics, Lutherans, Reformed
Protestants, the Puritans… If they couldn’t hang or drown or burn you, they would
shun you.

They also had to mercilessly persecute scientists who
believed that the earth went around the sun. After all Psalm 19:4-6 says that

In
the heavenshe has set a tent for the sun,5 which comes out like a
bridegroom from his wedding canopy,and like a strong man runs its course with joy.6 Its rising is from the end
of the heavens,and its circuit to the end of them;and nothing is hid from its heat.

The sun is compared to a happy,
virile ancient Middle Eastern bridegroom who leaves his tent after his wedding
night, going forth in vigor and strength, joyfully circling the earth (or at
least moving across it from horizon to horizon). The fact that this was poetry
with quaint metaphors didn’t matter. It was holy writ. Today it’s the
Evolutionists vs. the Creationists. Some of my good friends are stunned,
shocked, dismayed, and even offended that I could believe that the earth was
not created in 6 literal 24 hour days. I have been warned that I’m falling away
from Jesus.

Some Christians used to believe that black skin was the “mark
of Cain,” a sign of God’s curse. Some used the Bible to show that slavery was
biblical or that plural marriage is God’s will. As long as the ethics of the
world at large were mired in the same ethical swamps, the Christian church
could follow horrific practices, behaving in ignorant and uncompassionate ways,
and get away with it. The problem is that the concept of inalienable human rights
arose to muck things up, and science leaped from the pages of myth to
technological scientific experiments.

Some churches will not use musical instruments because there
are none mentioned in the New Testament. A truly pious disciple will not make
Eve’s dastardly mistake of adding to the Word of God. And here is the worst: to
be a good evangelical Christian today, one must believe everything that comes
from Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.

OK, just kidding. However, as the church looks more and more
“Left Behind,” uncompassionate, and irrelevant to the world at large, the leaders
close ranks, refusing to compromise their principals. They say we must agree
with Jesus. And I agree. The question is, what exactly did Jesus say? As a
Christian, I certainly want to agree with Jesus. For instance, I figure that
Christ was extant from the beginning of time. He was there when “all the sons
of God shouted with joy,” so he knows how old the earth is. And therefore he
knows that it isn’t just 6,000 years old. So I am confident that I AM agreeing
with Jesus on that issue.

A more serious point is this. Jesus promised that when he
left, he would send a “paraclete” to walk beside us. That is what the word
means in Greek. He actually said in John 16 that we would be better off for it.
It was necessary for Jesus to leave us so that the “Advocate” could come (and for
what purpose? To finish the work of forming us into proper representatives of
the Father). The Holy Spirit of God, for Whom Christ had so much reverence, will
comfort us, reprove the world of sin, and reveal future truth. John 16:12-15,

12
“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you
into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever
he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine
and declare it to you. 15 All that the
Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and
declare it to you.

Jesus perfectly represents the Father and the Holy Spirit perfectly
represents the Son.

The word for Satan in Hebrew means “Adversary,” one who has
no problem wrecking your home, destroying your health, and killing your children,
as poor Job found out. The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, goes throughout the
world bringing comfort, teaching, guidance, and defense against the accusation of
the enemy. The Holy Spirit also comes with gifts of power for the edification
of the Church and its members.

But this presents the Church with a terrifying conundrum.
Could it be possible that when the last verse of the New Testament was written
there was still some truth, some power out there that had not yet been
revealed? New truths, new powers, new experiences are frightening because they
are untested. We who so lack wisdom, can we actually discern whether something
new is taking us closer to the heart of God or luring us away? It’s a
legitimate question and a real fear. It lays a huge responsibility on our
shoulders.

And yet, if “all truth” actually does suggest that there
were truths yet to come, which the early New Testament church was not yet
prepared to understand, how can we be sure that it is the Spirit leading us?
Could it have something to do with releasing women from the curse of
Patriarchy? Could it cause us to get along with each other instead of burying
the heretic alive? Would Luther and Zwingli have to shake hands today and agree
to disagree? Could it mean that the evangelicals should show more respect to
scientists today?

It might mean all or none of those things. However, we
cannot abandon the challenge to listen to the Spirit today. But we must ask
ourselves, what is more precious to us, the doctrine of inerrancy and
literalism or being the loving vessel that Jesus Christ challenged us to be? Is
it really our main task to convict the world of sin or should we rather point
to our Heavenly Father as inviting the sinner to wholeness? How can the Christian
church beg God to help us to be all that we can be if we disallow women to be
what God has called and equipped them to be?

There are no easy answers or solutions to the possibility
that the “things to come” were truths rather than merely events to be survived.
But if the Lord has challenged us in that way, he will not abandon us to our
inherent propensity to be stupid. He will walk us through it. Perhaps we will
dance-walk through it, perhaps we will crawl. But we will get through it.

We have two great sign posts to help us on our way. One is “Love
your neighbor as yourself.” The other is the Golden Rule. I’m not saying that
the Holy Spirit is an old sweetie who does not acknowledge sin. Far from it.
But if we want to represent God, the conviction of sin must begin in the house
of God, and it must be balanced with compassion.

Side Blog

About Me

Received Ph.D. in Biblical Studies from Union Institute & University (Cincinnati) in 2009. Dissertation was published by Wipf & Stock. See amazon.com for Dust or Dew: Immortality in the Ancient Near East and in Psalm 49. Very academic. But, new book, Psalm 49 and the Path to Redemption, published 8-2017, is written at lay level.